The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventor(s), to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Image sensor arrays are formed from a grid of photo detectors/sensors. In is not uncommon to have one or more defective photo detectors that originated from the manufacturing process or became defective over the lifetime of the image sensor array. When an image sensor array outputs an image array of output pixel values, the output pixel values (corresponding detected intensities of light) for defective photo detectors will be incorrect. That is, the output pixel values for defective photo detectors in the image sensor array will not properly correspond to the intensities of light impinging on those photo detectors of the sensor array. For example, a defective photo detector may output a pixel value that is too bright (too large) or too dark (too small).
Some imaging devices (e.g., cameras) attempt to correct the output values of defective photo detectors in an image array of output pixel values. For example, some techniques generate correction factors for defective photo detectors before imaging (e.g., during a calibration process) and then apply the correction factors during imaging to correct the pixel values. However, these correction techniques have their limitations, especially in imaging devices having image sensor arrays with multiple color channels.